


The Loss of Touch

by Kaiseilin



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Bromance, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, John likes to swear, Love, Nightmares, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 14:46:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiseilin/pseuds/Kaiseilin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sentiment?"</p><p>"I owe you that."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Loss of Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Just one of the many possible ways the return of Sherlock can go in my head. Fluff and nightmares abound.

It’s still too early.

 

The morning is bleak and normal. So normal that he makes that fatal mistake; turns round to ask his flatmate if he wants a cup of tea.

 

Nobody answers him.

 

He takes himself back to bed, tea forgotten, and doesn't get back up again for two days.

 

-

 

Some days it's better, he can do the shopping, he will have a drink with Mrs Hudson.

 

He has tried leaving the flat for good but found that he couldn’t. To leave Baker Street would be to leave the last bit of Sherlock behind. He couldn't leave Sherlock behind. People keep telling him to try but he _can't_ leave Sherlock behind.

 

It never stopped Sherlock leaving _him_ behind.

 

-

 

It takes many months for John to get a routine back and the limp is still there. Sometimes he manages days of blissful normality, void of turbulence. Then he finds himself sobbing out of nowhere over the bathroom sink. Finds his hands bloody one evening after he'd punched the mirror. He still won’t have anything to do with Mycroft or Lestrade, or anything work (Sherlock) related. He works at the surgery several days a week and tries not to let people worry about him as much as possible.

 

-

 

He finds himself stood by Sherlock's grave after more months. It's a sad little thing with hardly any words or company. It suited him well, and that was a shame.

 

“I want to punch you in the face.” He says to the black stone. It has nothing in the way of a reply but slowly he can picture the amused raised eyebrow of his friend and it now feels like _he's_ the one being punched in the face.

 

 _'This was a bad idea.'_ John thinks.

 

It doesn't stop him coming back once a week.

 

-

 

After a year, the ever slight hope that Sherlock will grant him the miracle of not being dead is fading and so does John.

 

There is a month shortly after the anniversary of his friend's death where he does not leave his bedroom. Mrs Hudson tries to coax him out but it does little. She leaves him food and sometimes he eats it.

 

He narrowly avoids losing his job with a doctor’s note from his therapist but he knows the surgery isn't happy. Nobody is happy now. He couldn't care less.

 

He is angry at Sherlock, too angry to think about anything else but how much he bitterly misses him.

 

-

 

After a year and a half of nothing but mourning, John decides this is enough. If Sherlock is dead then he isn't a dead fraud - he's a dead hero. John wants the world to see that, even if Sherlock wouldn't have cared about the opinions of the world.

 

Mycroft is unhelpful and John spends most of his time feeling angry. He shouts at the man a fair few times and once or twice needed restraining when he lashed out for an attack. John can't help feel Mycroft is being deliberately unhelpful and this resurfaces that tiny flicker of doubt and hope in John that hurts too much. _Far_ too much. Something isn't right about all of this.

 

 _Nothing_ is right about all of this.

 

-

 

For three years John is just John.

 

_Nothing happens to me._

 

Except that it does.

 

-

 

It was like an exact repeat of the first time, except that it _really_ wasn't.

 

Somewhere there though, there was some metaphorical mirroring of the last time, involving the saving of John's life via a lab encounter.

 

He remembers Molly opening a door to one of the labs and then Sherlock, stood there like he owned the place.

 

Sherlock. Stood there.

 

He remembers an 'Afternoon.' In that deep voice he hadn't heard in so long. Then he remembers nothing.

 

-

 

He finds himself waking up on a chair with sore wrists and the first thing he sees is Sherlock having the back of his head dabbed with alcohol by a doctor. John could see a bloody patch and crimson stains running through his hair and neck.

 

The sight brings back a memory he'd tried much too hard to escape and re-lived through years of nightmares. The result is an adrenaline surge. It's back and forcing him from his chair in a wild rush to the sight. He hears voices but none of it matters, John has to know this is real. He pushes the doctor aside and grabs Sherlock's pulse point.

 

There is a beat there, a steady, very much alive beat, in both the wrist and neck.

 

“I am alive, John.”

 

John repeats the voice back to himself, still clutching the beating arteries. It becomes a mantra, a frantic chant in his head that is getting slowly louder as pressure in his ears behind to bleed away. Now he feels himself shaking, skin hot and clammy, there is sobbing echoing off every bit of glass clinical equipment and it's bouncing back at him in such volume he can't hear the chant any more. Just his own crying and god...Sherlock's voice. Sherlock's _actual_ voice. He's alive.

 

He's home.

 

-

 

“I'm sorry.” John croaks, staring at the bandage around Sherlock's head.

 

“ _You're_ sorry?” Sherlock repeats, sounding confused. For a moment John is also confused, but it's too soon to let himself be angry again, he just wants the safety for now, the security. His anger can wait. It's already got this miracle into a spot of trouble.

 

When John had blacked out and before he'd woke up on the chair seeing Sherlock being tended to, he had apparently attacked him. The ache in his wrists was from where he'd grabbed Sherlock's shoulders and smashed him into the wall with a great push; that also resulted in the splitting of skin on his cranium where his head bashed against the plaster.

 

And to be honest he fucking loathed himself for it. Sherlock deserved a punch in the face, he'd told him that at the grave countless times. But to simply blank out and attack him before even knowing if he was in any fit state to be attacked without dangerous consequences...John felt sick.

 

So sick that he asked the taxi to pull over so that he could heave into some bushes along the road, returning to the cab hot with shame. Sherlock didn't comment.

 

_It's his fault. For just turning up and acting like nothing has changed. For looking absolutely the same._

 

His thoughts do little to comfort him and his swelling of guilt.

 

-

 

“I am fine, John.”

 

“Don't.”

 

“J-”

 

“Just! Don't! Sherlock, not now. It's exactly the point...that you're fine it's...”

 

Sherlock sighs, John tries not to hyperventilate. He doesn't want to look at Sherlock but he can't look away.

 

The detective stands gingerly in the centre of the flat, exactly as it had been left. John didn't know Sherlock could manage ginger but then, this was the time for it. Then he walks to the kitchen and John stares as he makes tea and puts a cup down in front of him.

 

He is torn between knocking the cup off the table and smashing it, or laughing.

 

In the end he does neither, he stands and hugs Sherlock, properly, for the first time. He feels it's far overdue.

 

-

 

John had stopped using the term 'normal' because there wasn't one ounce of his life that _was_ 'normal', whatever that meant anyway. So weeks later when he's waking up and coming downstairs to find Sherlock sat in the kitchen with his microscope, he avoids thinking that this is in any way normal.

 

Life was attempting to be _usual_ , but it was having little prosperity with that. A great and dangerous tension hung around them like a rain cloud and it was apparent to everybody.

 

Sherlock had explained his reasoning for what he'd done and John had accepted it. He didn't want to hear the technicalities of how he'd 'died'. Sherlock talking about how he stopped his pulse and how he'd jumped from the roof and how he'd become drenched in blood would simply have annihilated John and the detective seemed to have deduced that.

 

Of course Mycroft's unwillingness to co-operate also became clear. If he knew the truth (who knew with Mycroft) the reveal would have resulted in John's death and therefore a complete waste of time faking anything in the first place.

 

He drinks tea and watches Sherlock from the living room table. There is something reserved about him now that John can't quite understand.

 

Sherlock's name was cleared, the truth on Moriarty was known, his henchmen dead and the public informed. John read the papers and watched the news with his military mask on and pretended to be pleased when such headlines appeared because it was good news. He couldn’t stop the reminder hurting though, couldn't stop the anger that had plagued him for three years.

 

His therapist was telling him he needed to address it, that he was in denial. She is probably right. When John wakes up screaming from nightmares of the fall from Bart's, he has to get up and make sure Sherlock is in the flat. He always needs to be sure he isn't living in hallucinations. Every time he comes down at three in the morning and finds Sherlock working, the detective always repeats the same thing to him.

 

“I am alive, John. It's okay.”

 

 _It's not okay._ John thinks. _You could die all over again._

 

_-_

 

Another nightmare and another trip downstairs for 'tea' in the dark. Another night of Sherlock sitting there and glancing up at him. John knows he knows about the nightmares, he shouts in his sleep, Sherlock had told him years ago. Years ago when he was having nightmares about war and not about suicide.

 

He is stood behind his friend, waiting for the kettle, just looking at the back of him, at the blue dressing gown, the curly hair. Sometimes he doesn't think this is happening, denial bleeds in and out of him. Sometimes Sherlock will do something just _so himself_ that John can't help but be giddy with relief and glee. As if nothing had ever happened and everything is fine, melting away behind them like a bad dream.

 

Until he remembers, until he dreams, finds himself in these lucid moments where anything could be pretend and then it hurts all over again.

 

He feels a constriction in his chest as he looks at Sherlock's back and he steels himself, reaching out a hand and placing it on his friend's shoulder. The notion that Sherlock might poof away like smoke is ridiculous but the fear of it is still there. No such thing happens. The shoulder is warm and real.

 

The kettle clicks to announce it is done and John feels stupid with his hand on Sherlock like he can't let go. This is breaking some kind of barrier he'd made for himself. This is unwinding some kind of string ball in his ribcage.

 

“I am here.” Sherlock says.

 

“So you keep saying.” John replies quickly; removes his hand and leaves, kettle ignored.

 

He practices breathing in front of his mirror, winding that string ball back up tight. He reads in bed until the sun rises and he comes down at eight to find Sherlock on his laptop. Neither one mentions that morning.

 

-

 

There's a case a few weeks later and it almost tugs that ball of string out of John. At least out of his veins and limbs where it seems to have slyly worked its way.

 

It lasts a week and has them running all over London after a serial killer who leaves no clues. Sherlock finds clues anyway, obviously. John finds himself dodging bullets, fighting gang members, jumping rooftops and getting closer every day to the head man in charge. The finale is fantastic - stealth chase in a warehouse. Proper battleground stuff that gets his heart racing. He is almost shot three times and manages to shoot the killer in the leg while Sherlock is 'chatting' with him. At which point Scotland Yard swept in from their hiding positions and arrested the bleeding killer.

 

Sherlock beams at him and he smiles back before he can contain himself. Adrenaline is still coursing through his body. The great detective suggests they eat Chinese on the way home and John agrees. They laugh through dinner, take the piss out of people who irritate them, Sherlock talks a lot of clever things and John rolls his eyes a lot. It's completely serene, string unwinding bliss; he feels a million times lighter and carries hope.

 

Which of course means the world has to go to shit a few hours later.

 

He dreams that night that he is looking in the mirror in the living room of 221B. He likes this already, it is boring, mundane. He stares at his own face for a very long time; he begins to note all the wrinkles and contours of his features. Soon it becomes enough time to have counted every visible pore. Then it gets a bit odd. He's been staring in the mirror for hours and it's getting less boring and more unnerving. He feels small jolts of panic when he realises this isn't normal. He's been looking in this mirror for hours. Days. Weeks. Months? Nothing is changing.

 

He cannot move. He can't look away from his reflection; every nerve is bolted into place. He struggles like a wild animal in his head but not a single muscle moves. His face remains freakishly still, he could be dead. It doesn't feel like his own reflection any more. He wants to walk away.

 

The mirror wants to show him something. It shows him Sherlock. It shows Bart's rooftop.

 

John’s chest clenches and still he can't look away. He knows what he's going to see now. He's revisited this so many times. The voice in his head is sobbing.

 

He is shocked when he sees himself appearing behind Sherlock on the rooftop. He begs himself to stop his friend. He watches them up there, Sherlock has turned and is talking to him, he can't hear them. The John on Bart's is walking towards Sherlock with his arms out.

 

 _Save him._ John thinks.

 

He doesn't save him. He _pushes_ him. In a fury the John on top of Bart's lunges and pushes Sherlock off the rooftop. John's mind is screaming as he watches his friend falling. He needs to run, needs to run and catch but he can't.

 

When Sherlock hits the pavement his whole body is jolted with electric pain and he opens his mouth and screams for real.

 

The reflection doesn't scream. The reflection stands with a smirk on his face, _covered_ in Sherlock's blood. John is screaming, he is trying to smash the mirror but can't.

 

His reflection laughs and reaches through the glass, hands covered in blood aiming for his throat.

 

He wakes up.

 

Every nerve in his body is alight and he is still screaming, still unsure this is the real world. He's on the floor and scrambles up, clutching the wall for support and trying to regulate his breathing. His heart is aching with every furious beat. There is nothing he can do to calm the rage within him. His room is dark and he fears the whispering voices that lurk in the shadowy corners. His head is ringing with them.

 

_Get a grip John Watson._

 

He's breathing hard against the wall, eyes flicking to every corner of his room, convincing himself this is real, that everything is fine. It takes several minutes. Then he tries to walk towards the light switch.

 

His leg clamps up and he falls to the floor hard. The string ball tightens itself sharply and sobs begin to fall out of him.

 

He hasn't cried this hard in weeks, months even. He'd steeled himself up sometime after that anniversary and hadn't shed a tear since. Now he positively falls apart on his bedroom floor, cries so hard his eyes sting and he has to hold back his gag reflex. He hates the sound of it, it's loud, wailing and pathetic and the more he hears, the more it happens.

 

He is still hysterical when Sherlock opens his bedroom door with a look of genuine concern and fright on his face.

 

John loses it.

 

He screams at Sherlock when he tries to come near him, the nightmare still too fresh in his mind. He yells at him to get away, stumbles backwards into the room and threatens him. He begs him to leave. Sherlock won’t listen, keeps trying to walk towards him, shouting his name but John can only see himself lunging at his friend with blood covered hands. When he throws himself to the floor with his hands over his ears and roars at the top of his lungs for Sherlock to get away from him an almighty silence follows it.

 

When he opens his eyes, the room is empty, not a sound is heard.

 

John blacks out with exhaustion against the wall.

 

-

 

The doctor is not surprised to find the house empty when he wakes up. He feels too hateful of himself to even allow panic. The fresh microscope slides and the used tea mug let him know Sherlock was here.

 

He's not now though and it's John's fault.

 

Mrs Hudson knocks some time later with a sombre look on her face. She knows what's happened, she must have heard it. The whole street probably heard it. She watches him stand by the window for a moment before carefully walking to him. She's learnt to deal with the nightmares by now, knows how to approach.

 

“He's told me to tell you he won’t be gone long.” She says softly. John doesn't respond. She reaches out a hand and tenderly lays it on the side of his face. It's warm and motherly, Mrs Hudson is a treasure in his life. “I'll come back later to check you're okay.”

 

John sinks to the floor when she's gone and curls in on himself, thinking.

 

_How long is long? A few hours? A few days? Weeks?_

 

_Three years?_

 

A small weeping noise escapes him before he tenses and forces it down again. He makes himself stand and put the kettle on. He forces himself to clean around the flat and write a shopping list and occupy himself with mundane tasks. He repeats Mrs Hudson's promise 'He won’t be gone long,' and festers an intense hatred of his own helpless actions.

 

-

 

Three days of 'He won't be long' was killing him and he wasn't sure how to feel when he came back to find Mycroft sitting in Sherlock's chair.

 

He drops the shopping by the door and sits in his own chair, looking Mycroft in the face, expectantly. The man taps his umbrella on the floor and smiles wryly after a moment.

 

“You have the most peculiar effect on him you know?” He hums quietly. “He ceases to understand himself.”

 

“Where is he?” John asks.

 

“Safe.” He replies. “ _Now._ ” Rests his cheek on his hand. “Refused to have anything to do with me for a while, you know how stubborn he is... _particularly_ dramatic this time.” The words articulately rolled on his tongue.

 

“When is he coming back?”

 

“Tomorrow.” Mycroft's voice is definite, he sees John notices. “I've picked him up off the streets too many times John Watson. It's a _terribly_ inconvenient duck into my schedule each time. _Don't_ put him there again.” His voice carried a threat and through the anger flaring inside him, John nodded. Mycroft nods back. “You should fire your therapist.” He sighs, not the first time he's heard that from Mycroft. “Lousy job she's doing.”

 

There is a long look between them. “It's time for things to change, John.”

 

-

 

Things do change, if only a little. When John wakes up the next morning, Sherlock is stood by the window waiting for him with the odd silence that inevitably fills the room. It was John who broke it, with a quiet apology to his friend.

 

Sherlock looked to him pensively and John feels the sickness stirring in his stomach. He finally gets Sherlock back and all he'd done so far was attack him and drive him back out of the house and into old habits he'd tried for years to rid Sherlock of.

 

“I've been a bad friend lately, Sherlock.” He struggles, swallows. “I'm just finding it difficult to...adjust.” He rubs both palms over his face and huffs an exasperated laugh. “It's like the war all over again.”

 

“Why won’t you touch me?”

 

That stops John in his thoughts, makes him stare at his friend in confusion. The uneasy heat creeping into the pit of his stomach was screaming denial to his brain.

 

“What do you mean touch you? I don't-”

 

“Three times, John.” Sherlock interrupts, his expression is trying to hide the obvious frustration. “Once when I came back, once when you hugged me, once on the shoulder weeks ago. They're the only three times you've let yourself come into contact with me and only one of them was something you meant and that you didn't run away from.”

 

John remembers the hug they had shared in the living room and his chest gives a small ache. He doesn't say anything.

 

“You didn't have a problem before.”

 

“I didn't have a _lot_ of problems before.” John feels like a dick the moment he says it. For _god’s sake_ Sherlock _died_ to save _his_ life. “I'm sorry. Fucking... _shit_.” He rubs his face again. John feels this is hopeless. Two men who both don't understand how they feel and wouldn’t say it if they did, trying to work out some of the strongest emotions they've ever had to deal with. “It shouldn't be this difficult Sherlock...it shouldn't be as difficult as losing you...getting you back should have felt amazing... _fucking hell_...”

 

When John chances a look to Sherlock through sore eyes, he's heartbroken by the expression he sees. All that is human and uncovered in him is showing in his eyes and it makes John feel like he's took a million steps backwards whilst Sherlock has shot forwards. Sherlock hardly shows this side of him, the empathy, the emotion. Really, John is just as bad sometimes depending on who it concerns. Adopting a military headset when he doesn't want to fall prey to feelings and pain.

 

“John.” Sherlock says softly, looked slightly puzzled again, slightly unsure of himself. It's an odd look for him, again. “If sometimes...you need to...touch me...If you need some kind of proof I'm here and if you're...suffering...it's okay.”

 

The ball of string in John’s chest has just rolled over and he can't prevent the sigh and the prickling in the corners of his eyes. Here is Sherlock, who has changed so much, come so far and after getting hurt by one of the few he truly cares about...tries to _help_ instead of retreating back into a sociopathic shell. He's trying to understand. Sherlock Holmes doesn't like to go with things he's unsure of, doesn't like to play with feelings and risk getting things wrong. Sherlock Holmes is trying, for him. It's an epiphanic sort of moment for John, when his brain supplies the fact that, yes, he really does love this man. He's not sure how or why but at the moment he doesn't matter, he loves this man and he hates himself. And he feels ridiculous, imagines himself putting a hand to Sherlock's head or pulling him for hugs at random moments of the day and wants to laugh at the absurdity.

 

“Well...it's a bit bloody stupid really isn't it...” He was talking about himself, embarrassed, sighing when he realised it probably sounded like he was ridiculing Sherlock's kindness. “I don't mean-”

 

“You have trust issues John.” John looks up. “You've been told that...and these days it's yourself that you don't trust.” He looks more confident now, like when he grasps a clue in a case and begins his deduction reel to the solution. Though it's out of place and situation, John still can't help the flutter of excitement and anticipation he's used to from these moments. “You don't know if your eyes and ears are deceiving you sometimes, you're thinking you're going mad. You could wake up any second, could be in a coma for all you know. Did I ever exist in the first place? Did you ever really leave the war? You don't know what's a fabrication of your own mind any more, especially not when the nightmares are so familiar and feel so real.” He stops and his mouth catches on air for a moment. “You can use me...to stop that.”

 

John's chest is blown. “Sentiment?” He says simply, hint of a smile in the corner of his lips. There is the same hint in Sherlock's mouth as he replies.

 

“I owe you that.”

 

“Thank you, Sherlock.”

 

-

 

Few instances of touch have happened since their talk but John still feels the air is less tense now, a bit less string in his chest and a bit more ground to his feet. Sherlock seems happier, in his own way; he's taken to making mess again, playing the violin extra loudly and arguing with the skull.

 

They get a few cases in the next two weeks and it's all rather normal. It's a Thursday morning when John needs Sherlock. His nightmare was odd, not as brutal as the last ones but it was dark, uneasy and full of tormenting whispers. He remembers Sherlock's promise and feels utterly stupid as he clutches his coffee mug and watches his friend in the kitchen, wondering how to go about this. He has to try, he knows he does.

 

_This is stupid, I fought a war and I can't even walk over there and..._

 

_and what?_

 

Deciding as usual he's better at winging it he walks over to Sherlock with no plan and ends up standing there, receiving a questioning stare, his mouth open as he thinks of something to say.

 

“Good experiment then?” He settles with, and gets a raised eyebrow from the detective in return. He can feel himself cringe.

 

“Really John?” Sherlock questions, tone mocking and John scowls. Sherlock is taking the piss out of him, which would be normal, except Sherlock is taking the piss out of his communication skills. _Sherlock_. Was taking. The piss. Out of _John's. Communication skills._

 

“Oh bloody hell.” The doctor sighs, puts his mug down on the table and lays a hand on Sherlock's shoulder.

 

The world does not implode. Sherlock blinks twice and then goes back to looking through his microscope, John remains attached, hand to shoulder. He managed an awkward ten seconds before coughing. “This is stupid.”

 

“It's _fine.”_ Sherlock says, definitively and John scowls again into the back of his head. “Might help if you sat down instead of standing there for no apparent reason.”

 

John tries to cross his arms with only one arm free and ignores Sherlock for a while, just to be stubborn. He can practically feel his friend's smirk. He doesn't want to believe Sherlock could be this right about something this stupid. With a bubbling sense of hope he was feeling somewhat reassured. He gets a chair after a minute and brings a newspaper to read beside his friend. He tries to inconspicuously slide it closer than necessary so their arms might brush. He knows its bollocks really, you can't do something without Sherlock knowing about your intentions, though he does it with the excuse of humouring the detective. It works, Sherlock gives a small laugh and elbows John as he opens the newspaper. John elbows back with mock irritation and for a second, everything and everyone in the room is impenetrably happy.

 

-

 

The touches are small and yo-yo between frequency and sparseness. John can tell Sherlock knows when he's had nightmares and so when they are bad, he tries to touch his friend more. He's continuing with the delusion that he's doing it to keep Sherlock happy. They range from leaning over Sherlock's shoulder when he's working, laying a hand on his head in the mornings on his way to the kettle and small pushes to his arm or back when he walks past him. Little things like that. He can't help but feel like he's doing things wrong, missing some kind of point, and it’s eternally frustrating.

 

“Utterly stupid.” He says sometimes when he's standing with an awkward hand to a part of Sherlock. The detective always seems irritated by John's embarrassment.

 

“It's normal.”, “It's fine!”, “Do shut up John.”, “There's nothing wrong with it.” He'd fuss and John would sigh.

 

The arguments, if you could call them that, were nice, domestic, usual indeed.

 

-

 

 

The touches, though silly at first, are now integrating themselves back into his life and soon he realises he's not doing it on purpose any more. He can tap Sherlock on the shoulder for his attention and push him in the back of the head when he's being annoying and sometimes even finds himself with a hand on his back as he scoots past him or says something significant to him. It makes him wonder if this is what Sherlock meant, if he did these kinds of things before three years ago. Sometimes Sherlock looked pleased and others he looks like he's reluctantly trying to tell John something.

 

He should have known the push to get whatever it was they were holding back, would be stupid.

 

It wasn't even a case, it was a _car accident_ of all things. One look too late and John just remembers a screech and then deafening pain. The next stretch of time is a blur and he thinks he's dreaming for a lot of it, until the pain starts to register and the red blotches in his vision set off the acknowledgement of blood. Suddenly every nerve in him is screaming for Sherlock and through the foggy pain he can make out his friend struggling with consciousness, fighting with the air bag in his face. John reaches for him, all he can see is broken glass and blood and _Sherlock_ and his chest is pounding.

 

Sirens are blaring soon after and Sherlock is trying to say something to him but he can't hear anything right now. Somewhere the doctor in him tells him he's in shock and that they're both conscious and there's no immediate signs of severe injury. The post traumatic stress is screaming at him to clutch onto his friend and not let go though and it's _this_ that pisses off the ambulance crew as they are rescued from the dented cab.

 

His hearing comes back when a medic manages to separate them and he hears himself shouting Sherlock's name in the surrounding commotion. Despite probable concussion he can hear Sherlock slurring “I'm fine John, I'm fine.” Repeatedly to him and he pauses just enough so that the crew can put them both in opposite beds in the back of the ambulance. People are trying to tend to him but he's focused mostly on Sherlock shouting at the crew to leave him alone. Calming slightly at the sight of Sherlock being his usual intolerable self, he estimates the damage. Broken glass covering clothing, larger chunk in his left leg, shallow. Possible broken rib from the sound of his breathing and the way he was hunched, fractured nose, moderate concussion and a multitude of bruising and scratches.

 

“Sir I need to ask you to lie down, could you do that for me please?” For the sake of the medics patience he warily lay, head turned to the side the whole time to keep his eye on Sherlock, who was busy deducing his injuries before the medic could asses them himself. Blinking through the head trauma, he returns his attention to John and reaches a shaky arm out. John takes his hand and squeezes it, relieved. Sherlock smiles. It's an 'I told you so' kind of smile as breathing gets a little easier and John realises then that he's living this kind of situation day to day in his head. That the touches really were bloody helpful.

 

_Smug bastard._

 

_-_

 

They get home bruised and battered that night and fall into their respective chairs in a kerfuffle of grumbling and swear words.

 

“The pain killers they give you are bloody useless.” Sherlock groans.

 

“Yeah, they're shit.” He agrees, he's got his fair share of bruises and scratching, a large purple colour is spread all up his left side from hip to shoulder and he has a black eye, several cuts from the glass, the deepest one above his left eyebrow.

 

Sherlock laughs low in his throat and John can't help but chuckle, it hurts his body but the effect inside is nice and familiar. “Be right back.” He mutters and carefully pulls himself up and hobbles up the stairs to his room. He comes back with a box, in which he takes two pills out of and passes one to Sherlock, moving to make them glasses of water. “Used to use them for my leg...shoulder.” He explains, as Sherlock rolls the pill between his fingers thoughtfully. “Not supposed to take them now but by god they work.” He returns to his seat wheezing like an old man. “They won't interfere with what they've given us already.” The corner of his mouth turns up and he swallows the pill, sighing and sinking back into the chair. Sherlock smiles with one side of his mouth and does the same.

 

“You're a bad influence on me, John Watson.” He says darkly, mouth still turned up and John laughs dizzily.

 

“ _Me_? A bad influence on _Sherlock Holmes?”_

 

Sherlock nods, John lets his head fall back to look at the ceiling. “I'll throw them away when we're better.”

 

“Don't trust me?”

 

“Don't trust _me_. I trust you more than anyone...” He trails off, concentrating on the ceiling still, his head growing a little foggy from the pain killers.

 

“You're still feeling guilty from the lab months ago.” Sherlock states and John's forehead wrinkles in response. He takes a few deep breaths and lets the medication soothe him.

 

“I just...can't believe I...shit Sherlock you could have been injured, I could have hurt you, _really_ hurt you. I'm a doctor and I still...”

 

“You're my friend before you're my doctor.” Sherlock explains for him. “And you didn't hurt me, not in the way you're thinking, so you need to let it go, John.”

 

John's heart swells when he glances to the man, whose fingertips are suspended under his chin in thought and openness. “Sherlock...there were things I said to you, on and around that day that I... _hate_ myself for.” His hands tremble in self directed rage as he thinks about how the last thing he said to Sherlock face to face before the fall, was about how he was a machine. He was the one person who'd protected Sherlock from that view. In his final hour, when Sherlock died for him, that was the last thing he'd said. “There were things that I never even got to say.” He chokes, blaming he medication for his emotions getting the better of him.

 

“You were the only one John.” The detective tells him, face flickering amber in the low lit fire. “During everything, everything you didn't even understand but you _still_ believed me. You never, not for one second during any of it, even in the last few minutes.” His eyebrows draw into a frown, fingers worrying by his accepted lips. “Even when I doubt myself, you don't. When I can't figure out the reason to be angry at the press or the people around me, you're angry for me. There's never any single flicker of anything resembling doubt. You _constantly_ throw yourself in front of bullets and _kill_ when my life is at stake and you're... _nothing_ like anybody else. It was _such_ a problem.” Breath softly hissed over the last words. His eyes close, like he was remembering something so troubling, that it's painful to keep them open.

 

“Yet when I dream I'm still seeing myself pushing you off that ledge.” John swallows, face tightening.

 

“I had to jump. I had to save you.” Sherlock whispers and John coughs a small tearless sob into his fist.

 

“I _know._ Then it took me forever to bloody start fighting for your name like I should have been at the start. You bloody do that for me and all I do is _mope_.”

 

“John, with every step you'd take to prove me right, you'd come one step closer to death yourself. I told you to smear my name, to protect you from the web of criminals.” Sherlock says it gravely; Moriarty's face no doubt, sneering in his mind.

 

“But they're gone now.” John's tone was barely questionable.

 

Sherlock sighs satirically and slips lower into his chair. “Yes. They're gone now.” It's a whisper, and a deeply thoughtful one that carries neither relief nor worry. John wonders what he's thinking. If he's wondering what he will do for entertainment now his worst enemy is dead. If he's wondering if Moriarty is in fact definitely dead. If he was looking over what the criminal had cost him and what he'd done to his life and feeling like a failure.

 

“Do you really think that I'm the most human person you've ever known?”

 

The question floors John, almost literally, after he'd realised where he'd spoken those words. At the graveyard to Sherlock's tombstone for the first time.

 

Sherlock had _heard_ them.

 

Sherlock had been there.

 

Anger and pain are suddenly there with him in the room, in his chest cavern, like it was that day all over again. This time he does sob, his eyes well up and he hunches over to press his hands to his face. He weeps like he hadn't done in months, not a weep of rage or nightmares. It's a mix of everything. Frustration at the situation, anger at Sherlock, guilt for the anger, pain for the past, present and future. Relief. Home. Everything.

 

He's half crawling over the small stretch of floor space, his arms around Sherlock and his face in his chest and Sherlock embraces him just as tight. The sound of his friend’s heart beating against his ear is amazing.

 

“You are...” He chokes. “The most, _most_ , human...human being...there has ever been, Sherlock.” Through Sherlock's embrace he realises something important. Sherlock _needed_ this. As much as he'd convinced John this was good for him, Sherlock needed it too. Because Sherlock feels guilty when he hurts John and John has taught him that guilt. Because Moriarty was dead but it had cost them their lives, or the best part of them. Because he didn't have that now and his brain was telling him he'd start to miss it, and it was telling him he was a horrid inhuman criminal himself for missing something that cost him so much. John had been the only one, to remind him that he was the human he tried not to show. The only one who'd screamed at the rest of the world to take the time to understand him and not force him to be the freak persona they were pushing into him.

 

“Thank you, John.” Sherlock says, with such unexpected relief and emotion that John clings to him tighter, they both wince from the pain and laugh at themselves. “I'm sorry.” Sherlock chokes a moment later. “I'm sorry for taking so long to come back...I tried.” John can tell Sherlock is crying and it breaks him completely, to have misunderstood _so_ much.

 

_It's normal._

 

_It's fine._

 

_There's nothing wrong with it._

 

Sherlock hadn't been saying those things to him but to himself.

 

He'd always thrived on praise. He did what he did because he couldn't do anything else, wouldn't do anything else and he lived to know he was right and to prove himself. John had been the one to praise him and in these three years, Sherlock had been alone too. Nobody was there to tell him he was getting anything right. He watched as John fell apart and as the world spewed out lies, as his brother betrayed him and his worst enemy ruined his life. He'd saved everything, then himself, then crawled back into life as it was before.

 

Even for him, for the great Sherlock, John knew that was _hard._ Just like him, Sherlock couldn't express that. John had come back from a war to nothing, the most mundane life and he couldn't take it. Sherlock had come back to something that for once he really cared about but he'd seen what he'd done to John trying to get that back. It was both of them who were broken and though he hated the thought of it, a little part of John was glad it wasn't just him. He knew now that Sherlock too, knew the value of what this was, that he understood deep down, what they were to one another.

 

To hell with the tension and the drama, he thinks, gently rubbing circles into the crying detective's back. Sherlock needed him. He needed Sherlock but Sherlock _needed_ _him_ too.

 

This time he'd be there for him.

 

-

 

He doesn't see Sherlock cry again after that night and he's glad.

 

He can't say he hadn't cried himself, though now it was sometimes for different reasons. When he walked into the living room in the mornings to see Sherlock reading in his chair, mess everywhere. Room bathed in homey light, he can't help but feel his eyes prickling with tears and a smile forming on his face sometimes. This is how it should be and he's beginning, _finally,_ to believe this is how it _will_ be. It's a different kind of realisation now, not a temporary one fuelled by denial. Both of their ugliest or deepest thoughts were out and they were over with.

 

He was just _damn happy,_ that finally something had clicked into place, a mutual understanding.

 

Love was something John understood a lot more now.

 

He tells Sherlock this on one of these ordinary mornings: “I love you.”

 

The detective had simply looked up in stricken befuddlement when John said it and really the doctor couldn't remove the smile plastered across his face. “It's okay.” He continues. “You love me too, you great idiot.”

 

“I do?” Sherlock asks.

 

“Yes.”

 

“...OK.” He rolls his eyes and goes back to his book. It takes his interest for a moment, then. “You spend a great deal of time correcting people when they assume that's the case.”

 

“No! That's the thing!” John clicks his fingers like he's on the verge of a discovery. “I've been thinking,”

 

“Wow.”

 

John ignores him “'Love' is just this stupid idolised, forced picture of hypocritical bullshit people spend their lives trying to figure out and put categories into and set a grounding on. Despite the fact they preach about how fucking free and not controllable it is, and by people who have never in their lives _been in fucking love_ , well fuck that!” He barks a laugh. “Me, waking up and seeing you in this house and walking out of the door to solve cases on London's battleground together because we're bored and fucking useless at anything else – _that_ is love.” He slams a palm cheerily into the mantle-piece. He feels light as a feather and giddy. “And you _fucking adore it_.”

 

“Obviously.” Sherlock drawls and John throws a trinket off the mantle-piece at him.

 

“Now get off your arse and bloody hug me Sherlock Holmes.”

 

Sherlock does and they do and they fall into torrents of uncontrollable laughter as they do so. And it doesn't matter that the nightmares won't just vanish and they will fight and hurt because _John gets it now_. Sherlock is right here, thrumming with deep laughter against him and John understands everything.

 

“You're a bloody _miracle_.” Decides the doctor. He doesn't doubt it for a second.

 

 


End file.
